Coyote kills family’s cat after entering Alabama home

The grandson of homeowner Roland Collins, Tyler Bruce, shows the coyote that his grandfather killed inside his home.

A coyote got into an Alabama home through a doggy door at about 3 a.m. on June 3 and killed the family’s cat before the homeowner shot and killed the canine inside the house’s basement.

“We have a doggy door on the basement door that my lab and my cat use to get into the house,” homeowner Roland Collins explained to Alabama Outdoor News. “I was sound asleep and I heard a thump in the basement that woke me up. I was going back to sleep, and the dog got up and ran to the top of the basement stairs and started growling. He had never done that before.”

Collins said he grabbed his .380 pistol from a drawer, popped in a clip and put a bullet in the chamber. He said he then walked down the basement stairs.

“I opened the door going to the basement and flipped on the light at the same time, and standing 6 feet in front of me was the coyote with our dead cat between his legs,” he said. “There was blood everywhere.”

Collins said the coyote went “berserk” when it saw him and made a dash for the doggy door.

“He missed the doggy door, and it knocked him down,” he said. “He then jumped on one of those small refrigerators and jumped on some shelves that were 7 1/2 feet off the ground. He turned the shelf over and fell in the middle of all the stuff. He then ran and tried to climb an 8-foot wall. He then ran into my workshop side of the basement, and when he raised his legs up, I shot out of instinct. He dropped dead and never moved.”